If you still have my audience tape the Dark Star > Stella Blue has no cuts. I vaguely remember the quality as being decent. :D

amazing darkstar i love pigpen but keith delivered everytime. great show all around im not real picky about sound quality tho it is good. as long as its not mydland playing its always good.

I streamed this tonite. I hadn't heard many AUD's from this era and I wanted to check one out ~ especially since this is such a brilliant performance. Usually you can trust any recording done by Bob Menke and friends and though it is a little fuzzy around the edges it does not disappoint.
Think Jerry was using his white Strat that evening and it squawks like a good maple neck Strat should.
Even as provocative is Bobby's rhythm which dutifully exfoliates Jerry's leads. Nice, too, that there is one drummer. Bass is a little boomy and mushy.
At this time the band was displaying many of the identical components extant in the ensuing Wall of Sound that would debut at Stanford three months later. Perhaps the recording mikes just couldn't swallow the onslaught of bass in the hall that night. There was a lot more ambient echo in the auditorium that night than usual. On my playback system this sounds distorted across the entire spectrum. But don't let that distract you from your chosen path. This is such a well-played effort that it doesn't matter if there is not pristine sound.
It was one of the sparsest Winterland crowds I was ever a part of and hence there is muddiness in the bass, yet a unique airiness which I choose not to attempt to describe, except I'll try.
This show was a lot of fun. Being in Winterland was like being in a breezy night club. It was not packed to its sweating gills that night and it was easy to move around anywhere in the hall. You could easily walk from the balcony down to the middle of the floor in five minutes and not step on anyone's toes. Really sweet and accommodating audience.
Perhaps the low attendance (I am sure it was not sold out) was due to the record-setting cold snap that gripped the entire SF Bay Area for about five straight days.
Frankly, being in Winterland that night was such a joy. I didn't feel like the proverbial sardine.
Was there with my core group of Deadhead friends, not the large assemblage I marshaled into the place on the preceeding two nights. Somehow or another it seemed like family night.
This was during the height of the GD's first boost of popularity. Within months it would be impossible to witness such an uncrowded Grateful Dead event. They just got too big. Too big in fact that most of the old-timers stopped going.
Not that that's good or bad ~ it's just what it was. In the early days we were used to going to a show and being able to move freely. That eventually became a thing of the past, but, hey, it was fun while it lasted. After that, one really had to muster himself to go and stand at attention, dancing with yourself in an eighteen by eighteen inch cubicle for six hours without any food, drink or bathroom breaks.
Yep. That was all over. The following year the band started carting around their massive WOS system and packing large venues and stadiums. And hence, if you wished to spend some time down in the mosh pit you were going to be ear-to-ear with your fellow freak.
From 73 onward, Ya just hoped everybody crushing in upon you used their "Dial" that day.
Yep. By late 1972 a new more civilized crowd freakwented Winterland and they sported more anti-perspirant than patchouli.
It was at the forefront of an entirely new era in Deadhom.

What's with the hoarding is, MOTB no longer shares their GD or Garcia recordings anywhere but their private FTP server. You get kicked out of their site if you share their sources anywhere else. It's all kind of sad, a pale shadow of what MOTB used to stand for. that's what "badbobby" has driven them to.
when was the last time you saw a "new" MOTB source shared anywhere?

What's with the "hoarding"? There are MOTB shows out on the trackers all the time, and I wonder where they find the time, bless them. Fantastic recordings and masterings, and the 24 bit shows are a gas to have.

Haven't you noticed all the JG shows we've been doing that are on the trackers? They aren't allowed at the LMA. What an idiot.

This is much better than what I was expecting from a balcony recording from Winterland, from 1972 no less, a year full of difficult audience recordings. Jerry and Bob are right there, and the crowd is very quiet, patient, and attentive. I wish the drums were captured just a little more in the mix, but otherwise this one sounds just great.
I haven't listened to the full show yet, but the Dark Star was a real pleasure to hear. Sure, we've all had the board for years and it's a well-known show, but I found it very nice to listen to from this new perspective. I generally never give "star" ratings to shows, but if I HAD to, I'd give it a solid 4, in consideration for the definite listenability in comparison to most 72 auds (this one is easily a contender among best of the year), and the performance is typical of the era, read: "great."